|
|
Post by hordur08 on Jan 14, 2009 6:56:32 GMT -5
I was searching through the course book and found a very interesting subchapter on page 960, "The ethics and risks of developing artificial intelligence". Especially I found an interesting discussion about transhumanism on page 963 and I quote: "Hans Morvec´s Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind predicts that robots will match human intelligence in 50 years and then exceed it. He writes, Rather quickly, they could displace us from existence. I´m not as alarmed as many by the latter possibility, since I consider these future machines our progeny, "mind children" built in our image and likeness, ourselves in more potent form. Like biological children of previous generations, they will embody humanity´s best hope for a long-term future. It behooves us to give them every advantage, and to bow out when we can no longer contribute. (Moravec, 2000)" Could these "mind children" of ours be our descendants? Would it be an acceptable end of human life, or is human life preserved to some degree through these "mind children"? |
|
|
|
Post by Helgi Páll Helgason on Jan 14, 2009 15:06:47 GMT -5
Regarding this and other topics I highly recommend books by Raymond Kurzweil such as "The Age of Spiritual Machines".
He believes, and I tend to agree, that intelligent machines will be a way for humanity to shed it's biological chains and evolve at previously unknown speeds (biological evolution is very slow). So rather than replacing humanity they will be an extension of it.
Another book, "Heaven in a Chip" by Bart Kasko, even describes how humans could become intelligent machines by gradually replacing biological parts with mechanical ones. Meaning that your "brain" would not be copied into a robot, but you yourself would gradually become a robot via part/module replacement.
|
|
|
|
Post by hordur08 on Jan 14, 2009 15:57:20 GMT -5
Sounds very interesting. AI is going to change how we think about being human.
|
|
|
|
Post by Birna Íris on Jan 14, 2009 17:44:30 GMT -5
Maybe Darwin's theory of evolution is just non-sense. Maybe we are just "mind children" of some kind of "ancestors"... ??  |
|
|
|
Post by Helgi Páll Helgason on Jan 15, 2009 3:30:06 GMT -5
It is more likely that the universe is a "mind child" of a higher level entity  |
|
|
|
Post by arnists on Jan 15, 2009 10:13:38 GMT -5
Our wetware lasts 80 years or more. How old is your computer?
|
|
|
|
Post by Helgi Páll Helgason on Jan 15, 2009 12:20:07 GMT -5
"Wetware" is to a large degree irreplaceable if damaged and is hard-coded for all practical intents and purposes.
I find it amusing to bring todays computer hardware into this discussion, by the time these events would start happening current hardware would belong in museums.
|
|
|
|
Post by Arnar Birgisson on Jan 16, 2009 11:39:55 GMT -5
In this vein, perhaps not exactly on AI, but on human existence - I recommend the Isaac Asimov short story called The Last Question. You can read it here: www.multivax.com/last_question.htmlIt only takes a few minutes to read |
|
